ON THE TRANSFUSION OF BLOOD. 683 



society thus formed had its rules intended to aid the progress of 

 science. A few years before, a Benedictine monk, Robert des Gabets, 

 had preached a sermon there on transfusion of the blood. The king's 

 councillor took interest in a discovery of which he foresaw the range, 

 and gave the new experimenter the support of his influence. 



" The first trial," Denis says, " was made on a young man, fifteen 

 or sixteen years old. This youth was attacked by a slow fever, for 

 which the doctors had bled him twenty times. He had become dull 

 and sleepy, from the treatment, to the point of stupidity. Some little 

 warmth was felt during the operation. Eight ounces of blood were 

 taken from him, and arterial blood from the carotid of a lamb was 

 immediately introduced by the same opening. He got up about ten 

 o'clock, dined with excellent appetite, and went to sleep at four in the 

 afternoon. He bled slightly from the nose." 



This operation having succeeded, Denis tried a second, but more 

 from curiosity than necessity this time. The author relates it himself 

 as concisely as before. " The transfusion was effected upon a chair- 

 porter, of vigorous constitution, forty-five years old. Ten ounces of 

 blood were taken from him, and lamb's blood substituted. The man 

 complained of no pain during the operation, and was delighted beyond 

 measure with the new invention, which seemed to him very ingenious. 

 When it was all over, he declared that he never felt better. Employ- 

 ment offering about noon, he carried a sedan as usual for the rest of 

 the day. Next day he begged that no one but himself might be taken 

 as the subject of new experiments." 



Three years before, transfusion of blood had been practised by 

 Lower in England, but only on dogs. Denis repeated with these 

 animals the experiments he had made on men. These were varied in 

 the most interesting ways. He not only transfused the blood of one 

 animal into the veins of another ; but, from the 8th to the 14th of March, 

 in 1667, he caused the same blood to pass into three different dogs 

 successively. Granting the correctness of the views then prevalent, 

 he then realized the famous Pythagorean fable of the transmigration 

 of souls. The experimenter was also bent on making his discoveries 

 generally known, proposing to make trials in public, and, for this pur- 

 pose, he fixed for the first day of his lectures " Saturday, the 19th 

 of March, of the same year, at two in the afternoon, on the quay of 

 the Augustins." History does not inform us whether Denis carried 

 out his plan ; but the Journal des Savants gives a tedious account of a 

 controversy that broke out more fiercely. In this previous war of 

 ideas, facts are neglected and forgotten, arguments are only dealt with, 

 and they control opinions. Denis declared at the outset that he would 

 depend solely on experiment ; but, at the same time, with a contradic- 

 tion explained by the tendencies of the times, he comes forth into the 

 scientific arena with the usual weapons he discusses. The works de- 

 voted to this warm contest are all inserted in the Journal des Savants / 



